$1.3M in ex-military gear given to Jefferson County

Eric Besson and Brooke Cru, Beaumont Enterprise

By Eric Besson and Brooke Crum

Published 9:22 am, Thursday, August 21, 2014

"SWAT" and a list of local offices are listed on the back of the county's MRAP vehicle. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

"SWAT" and a list of local offices are listed on the back of the...

"Jefferson County SWAT" is emblazoned underneath viewports on the county's MRAP vehicle Wednesday afternoon. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

"Jefferson County SWAT" is emblazoned underneath viewports on the...

Pictured is the fire suppression system switches inside Jefferson County's MRAP vehicle. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

Pictured is the fire suppression system switches inside Jefferson...

Sheriff Department intern Matthew Carroll, a senior at Kelly High School, sits in the passenger seat of Jefferson County's MRAP vehicle Wednesday afternoon. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX

Sheriff Department intern Matthew Carroll, a senior at Kelly High...

A Jefferson County Sheriff Department shield and "SWAT" are emblazoned on the side of the county's MRAP vehicle Wednesday afternoon. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

A Jefferson County Sheriff Department shield and "SWAT" are...

Sirens and lights are attached to the bumper of the county's MRAP vehicle. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

Sirens and lights are attached to the bumper of the county's MRAP...

Pictured is the driver's seat in the county's MRAP vehicle Wednesday afternoon. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

Pictured is the driver's seat in the county's MRAP vehicle...

Jefferson County's MRAP vehicle comes complete with an armored turret. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

Jefferson County's MRAP vehicle comes complete with an armored...

Sheriff Department intern Matthew Carroll stands outside the county's MRAP vehicle Wednesday afternoon. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Department has acquired a used Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle from the military. The armored vehicle can be used for rescues and cover in the case of an active shooter situation.
Photo taken
Jake Daniels/@JakeD_in_SETX
Photo: Jake Daniels

Armored personnel carriers rumble down the streets of Ferguson, Mo., carrying hundreds of law enforcement officers donned in camouflage with assault rifles in hand. The officers move through a din of indignant and sometimes violent protestors, decrying the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was fatally shot at the hands of a police officer.

Those are not uncommon items in the arsenals of local police departments and sheriff's offices.

Through a federal program, law enforcement agencies can obtain free machine guns, ammunition magazines, camouflage, night-vision equipment, silencers, armored cars, aircraft and much more from the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has transferred tens of thousands of machine guns, nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines and hundreds of armored cars to police departments since President Barack Obama took office, according to a database created by The New York Times of transfers made since 2006.

Some of those weapons made it to Southeast Texas.

Since 2006, Jefferson County law enforcement agencies have received $1.3 million in surplus military gear, including 38 assault rifles, 10 pistols and one mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle - or MRAP, according to the database.

The database does not specify which agencies received what gear. The bulk of the gear received by Jefferson County agencies is not weaponry but tools, cooking utensils, medical supplies and computers. Some are clothing items and cargo trucks.

In September of last year, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office received a mine-resistant vehicle - 15-ton hulk capable of deflecting roadside bombs, said Rod Carroll, spokesman for the sheriff's office. It is worth $658,000.

Carroll said the sheriff's office has used the MRAP twice: once when officers served a warrant on a man who opened fire inside his home and again last week when a gun was fired inside a house in which a man and his two sons had barricaded themselves.

The sheriff's office obtained other materials through the same program, such as laptops, tactical vests, backpacks, tool boxes and first aid kits, Carroll said. The department took ownership of a helicopter in 2000, he said, although that predates the database.

"Taxpayers already paid for this stuff," he said, and the sheriff's office used the program so taxpayers would not have to pay for it again.

The American Civil Liberties Union released a report in June that analyzes how local law enforcement agencies use military equipment. The report found that one-third of the equipment going to departments is new, said Tom Hargis, spokesman for the ACLU of Texas.

"Neighborhoods are not war zones, and police officers should not be approaching them that way," he said. "If we agree that neighborhoods aren't war zones, why are these federal agencies acquiring new weapons to arm our police departments?"

The MRAP the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office received was built in 2007 and likely saw the desert sands of Iraq or Afghanistan before reaching the swamplands of Southeast Texas.

Recently, the Orange County Sheriff's Office received an armored vehicle, Sheriff Keith Merritt said. The acquisition is not included in the database, which shows transfers through May of this year.

The vehicle would be used by the county's tactical team to rescue wounded victims and protect deputies during active-shooter situations, Merritt said.

"I know we're probably going to get some skepticism. We'll take some heat from some citizens (concerned about local forces obtaining military equipment)," Merritt said. "We're not trying to take over or anything like that, but we have to have equipment to do our job. …As a sheriff, I think I have a responsibility to protect our people here as best we can and also protect the citizens of Orange County."

To participate, law enforcement agencies must complete a 15-page application and keep an annual inventory on equipment received, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. DPS is tasked as the state sponsor for transfers, which are made directly from the federal government to local agencies.

Enrolled jurisdictions may then search databases to learn what specific equipment is available or compile a "want list" to allow the system to scan the database, according to DPS.

The Nederland Police Department received eight assault rifles through this program but has since transferred them to other departments in Texas, said Chief Darrell Bush.

Bush said the department no longer had any use for the rifles, so he entered them back into the program so another agency could use them.

Four of the assault rifles went to the Anderson County Sheriff's Department in March. The other four went to the Aledo ISD Police Department in May 2013, Bush said.

While the Groves Police Department did not receive any weapons from the program, it did pick up some two-and-a-half ton trucks the city uses to haul equipment as well as storage items and shelving, said City Marshal Jeff Wilmore. He said they were items that could save the city money.

Requests for information from the Beaumont Police Department were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Hardin County agencies received 13 assault rifles, 30 bayonets, two night-vision scopes, several unarmored trucks, air compressors, camouflage and a $7,200-tent. The county also received generators, storage racks and lighting systems. The total value was about $1.3 million, according to the database.

Of that sum, just $7,300 was spent on weaponry and camouflage, with the assault rifles valued individually at $138 or less.

More than $700,000 of the value accounted for the vehicles - all without armor - the agencies acquired. The vehicles include dump trucks and a fork lift, as well as military-troop transport trucks and a tractor.

The Hardin County Sheriff's Office and Lumberton, Silsbee and Sour Lake police departments do not currently have any surplus military equipment from that program, officials at those agencies said.

The Silsbee Police Department, for instance, recently shipped out 16 Vietnam-era automatic rifles originally obtained through the program that Police Chief Mark Davis decided the department no longer needed.

"At this point, we have no need for fully automatic rifles," Davis said. "We obviously have some rifles that are deployed to patrol, but everything we have is semi-automatic."

Half of those rifles went to the Kountze Police Department, Davis said. Attempts to reach Kountze Police Chief Andrew Trahan were unsuccessful.

Davis said the surplus program was beneficial because it allows agencies, including municipal public works departments, to curb spending.

"If you really start looking down through the years, the biggest portion in the dollar amount section would probably be for public works equipment," Davis said.

Agencies in Orange County received four trucks, one truck trailer, spare tires and 10 pairs of binoculars, according to the database. Pentagon values of the goods shipped to Orange total nearly $150,000.

Additionally, the sheriff's office received two of the trucks and the trailer transferred to Orange County agencies. Merritt said they are the troop-transport vehicles capable of holding at least 20 people and that he plans to use them after hurricanes to access areas with up to 5 feet of standing water to evacuate stranded citizens.

"I wish we would have had them during Hurricane Ike," the sheriff said. "Without those, we have no way of getting into the neighborhood ourselves."

Although his office has not obtained assault rifles through the federal program, each marked car contains a shotgun and a rifle, Merritt said.

"This militarization of police has occurred with essentially no oversight," said Hargis of the ACLU. "Some argue this is good for public safety, but in fact it undermines public trust in law enforcement, which makes it more difficult for police to do their jobs.